


His Voice Failed There

by Moorishflower



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-20
Updated: 2010-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People die. <em>Brothers</em> die. And Dean has to learn how to deal with his grief in the usual way. Title comes from the song "O Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie."</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Voice Failed There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tiptoe39](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiptoe39/gifts).



  
The day after the world doesn't end, Dean rolls out of his motel bed and steps on a dead man.

"_Fuck_," Gabriel spits, and Dean echoes him, clutching his foot. Gabriel's all sharp angles and unyielding bone, and Dean sits his ass back down on the bed and tries to figure out why there's a dead archangel lying on the floor next to his cheap, shitty bed.

Gabriel just looks at him, eyes heavy-lidded and almost gold in the early morning light.

"You're supposed to be dead," Dean goes with, after a long moment of silence.

"Yeah, well," Gabriel answers, "you were supposed to be dead, too. Look how that worked out. So how's your brother? Said 'yes' to Lucifer yet?"

Dean kicks him in the shoulder.

He isn't wearing boots or anything, so all that happens is that Dean's bare foot makes a meaty _thud_ sound as it connects with the ball of Gabriel's shoulder. The archangel makes a pained noise, somewhere between a whimper and a snarl, and then grabs Dean's ankle and _twists_. Dean yelps; he can't help it. Gabriel's _strong_.

But not strong enough. Dean blinks down at the archangel, and Gabriel stares back up at him, defiant.

"Do you even know how you got here?"

Gabriel opens his mouth. Closes it.

"No," he says reluctantly. He makes a move like he wants to sit up, and then grimaces, hand straying to his stomach.

There's a smear of blood across Gabriel's shirt, soaking through the cotton. Dean huffs.

"God_damnit_," he swears, and Gabriel _flinches_. Actually fucking _flinches_. So much for finding Lisa and Ben and having a normal life. Dean kicks off the rest of his covers, then slides out of bed.

"Get up," he orders, and Gabriel stares at him, uncomprehending. "I said get up. Take the fucking bed. I'll sleep on the floor."

And that's how Dean ends up playing babysitter for an archangel.

~

"Don't touch the radio," is the first thing that Dean says when Gabriel gets into the Impala.

So, of course, the first thing that Gabriel does is fiddle with the goddamn radio. Dean tolerates it for a grand total of maybe ten seconds, which he spends glaring daggers at the side of Gabriel's head, and when _that_ isn't hint enough he smacks the archangel's (_ex_-archangel?) hand the next time it gets too close. Gabriel scowls at him, and Dean turns the radio itself off, cutting right into the middle of Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville." He pulls out of the motel parking lot, ignoring Gabriel's dire look.

"So," he says, when the silence becomes too heavy for him to handle. "What happened?"

Gabriel purses his lips, and then glances out the window.

"I don't know," he says, without looking at Dean. "One minute I was dead. The next I wasn't, and I was lying on the floor next to _you_. End of story."

"That can't be all of it."

"I'm sure you're right. But _I_ don't know the rest of this story. You should take it up with my Father. Oh wait, you can't. Because he _doesn't give a shit_."

Dean's knuckles are beginning to turn white; he consciously forces himself to ease his grip on the steering wheel. "You're here, aren't you?" he grits out.

They've passed into the next state over by the time Gabriel speaks again. Which, Dean judges, means about three hours of silence. He minds more than he thought he would. Before, it was easy to ignore the silence, because there was no one else in the car with him. But now he keeps catching glimpses of the shape of Gabriel, out of the corner of his eye, and each time his heart lurches in his chest, and he thinks, _Sam_.

But it's not Sam, of course. Just Gabriel.

"I don't know what I am anymore," is what Gabriel says. Dean rolls his shoulders. He's not sure what to say to that, because he doesn't know, either.

Eventually, he goes with, "Maybe you should find out."

Gabriel cocks his head, and then raises his hand and snaps his fingers. The radio, which has been off until now, fizzles into life. All it plays is static, but Gabriel looks vaguely pleased. Also, clammy and kind of nauseous. Dean hastily rolls down the passenger side window in case he decides he needs to blow chunks.

"That was harder than I thought it would be," he says faintly. His hair glints copper fire in the sunlight. When he turns his head, he's caught his bottom lip between his teeth, and he's chewing on it, absent. A stupid human habit that he's apparently picked up, despite his angelic nature.

Dean looks away.

~

They pull into a gas station to refuel – Gabriel waits in the car while Dean stocks up on road snacks and pays for gas. He carries his bag of junk food back out to the car, rummages in it for a moment, and then tosses it into the back seat.

"Got you something," Dean says, and holds up the Twix bar. He pulls it away when Gabriel reaches for it. "_If_ you promise to leave the radio alone."

Dean knows that, if Gabriel is too weak to even turn the stupid radio _on_ properly, then there's no way that he can just manifest candy for himself. He isn't above blackmail.

"Fine," Gabriel says, lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line. But Dean hands him the chocolate, and he at least seems to cheer up a little.

"So, tell me what happened," Gabriel says, after another long silence. "Did we win?"

Dean doesn't know if Gabriel has the right to be counted in the 'we,' but he nods, jerkily. It's not worth arguing about.

"Yeah," he says. Something in his throat feels thick and inhospitable. "Lucifer's back in Hell."

"And Sam?"

Dean just barely restrains himself from pulling the car over to the side of the road, hauling Gabriel out, and beating his face into a bloody pulp. As it is, he bites the inside of his lip so hard that he breaks the fragile skin there, and has to roll down his window in order to spit a mouthful of blood out onto the highway streaming past them.

"Sam's gone," he says shortly.

Gabriel isn't the most tactful being in the world, but even he seems to recognize the carefully shielded violence in Dean's voice.

He doesn't bring Sam up again.

~

"God_damnit_ Gabriel, stop using up all the hot water!"

"Then stop saying my Father's name with such disrespect!"

Dean clenches his fists, because digging his nails into his palms until they bleed is a thousand times better than punching Gabriel in the mouth until he's missing a few teeth. The archangel just stands there in the bathroom doorway, towel slung low around his hips and his hair still damp. His weakened state means he can't just snap himself clean, and Dean had been a little enthusiastic when he had burned the last vengeful spirit. Combined with a brisk wind from the east, events had conspired to send a fistful of ash directly into Gabriel's face.

Which, in turn, has led to a Mexican standoff between them.

"Considering how helpful your _father's_ been," Dean growls, "I think I have the right to use his name however I fucking please."

Gabriel's skin is flushed pink, scrubbed clean of ash. He's lean in what looks like all the wrong places: shoulders, arms, calves, but he's got a soft stomach and his thighs (or what Dean can see of them, underneath the towel) are corded with muscle. Dean can't think of any angelic activities that would shape a body like that.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," Gabriel says bitterly, and pulls his towel tighter around himself.

Dean shoves past him into the bathroom and hopes that there's at least enough hot water for him to scrub the ash from his skin, to wash the smell of death from his hands.

Although maybe that's just what he smells like all the time. He has no way of telling, anymore.

~

Gabriel has nightmares.

Well, not _nightmares_, but something similar. He doesn't sleep, not really – just sort of lies there on the second bed with his eyes closed, but Dean can tell by his breathing that he's awake. Angels breathe differently than humans, stuttering and stopping, almost like they occasionally forget how. Dean's heard Castiel do it countless times. Now he listens to Gabriel not-dream next to him, and wonders what it is that he's thinking about that creases his forehead with lines of worry and pain.

"Isn't there something you could be doing?" Dean asks one day. He's been trying to make up his mind whether he wants to go see Lisa and Ben with an almost-powerless archangel in tow. "Like, I don't know. Angel-dial Cas or something, ask him for your VIP seat back."

Gabriel gives him a look that could wither a stone. "Don't you think I would if I could? Takes a little more energy than I have right now to make a direct call to Heaven."

Dean shrugs, feeling intensely awkward, and blurts out, "You're _not happy_." Which, yeah, no shit, and Dean just barely manages to keep from slapping himself. Gabriel isn't quite so generous.

"No shit," he says dryly. "I'm stuck with _you_ as a caretaker. I'm pretty sure that would piss anyone off."

That's a low freaking blow, though, because Dean took care of _Sam_, he took care of him all their lives and Sam never once complained. Dean learned how to _cook_ for Sam, so that his little brother could eat more than just pizza and Kraft macaroni and cheese every night. Dean's pretty sure that he's a _damn_ fine caretaker.

"Fuck you and your useless fucking wings," Dean snaps, and then locks himself in the bathroom for a half an hour. He doesn't need another shower, but he takes one anyways, because it calms him down, and the white noise of the falling water helps soothe away memories of Sam.

~

Dean isn't sure where to go anymore, so he lets himself drive without a destination. He has the feeling that he's heading vaguely northwest, which means he's heading towards Bobby, which is…he doesn't know if that's good or not, but it's happening, and Gabriel doesn't seem inclined to stop it. Gabriel doesn't seem inclined to do much of _anything_ these days, aside from mooch off of Dean and not reimburse him in any way.

"Do you like ice cream?" Gabriel asks him, and it's so out of the blue that Dean nearly stops the car, nearly pulls over so that his disbelieving stare can get the full amount of attention that it deserves. He doesn't, though, only glances at Gabriel out of the corner of his eye. He's not sure if this is a trick or not.

"…I like it well enough," Dean admits slowly. Gabriel closes his eyes.

There's a soft _hush_ sound, like air expanding to make way for something, and suddenly Dean has a bowl of ice cream in his lap. Granted, it's vanilla, not terribly exciting, and it's sort of drippy already, and there's no spoon to eat it with, but Gabriel looks terribly pleased with himself, so Dean takes it to mean that his strength is returning to him…at least a little bit.

Dean ends up pulling the car over anyways, because he doesn't think he can drive around with a cold bowl of frozen sugar-milk sitting directly on his junk. He suspects Gabriel put it there on purpose.

It tastes fine, though. Gabriel watches him while he eats it (licking it like a cone, because of the aforementioned lack of a spoon), blinking slowly, like a contented cat.

"What," Dean says, ice cream raised halfway to his mouth. He can feel a smear of vanilla on his bottom lip, but he's distracted by Gabriel's small smile.

"Nothing," Gabriel says. "You've been through a lot, haven't you?"

Fuck yes, he has. But Dean shrugs, because admitting that out loud to Gabriel isn't on his list of priorities.

"I'm just sorry I can't do more," Gabriel says. Dean's shoulders tense.

"You're never sorry for anything," he accuses, and Gabriel tilts his head. "Angels don't _feel_."

"It's close enough that you couldn't tell the difference."

Dean dumps the remainder of the ice cream out the window, throws the bowl to the wind, and then pulls back onto the highway. If he drives nonstop, he thinks they can make South Dakota before nightfall.

~

Bobby isn't home, and he isn't answering his cell phone. There are clues scattered around the house suggesting that he's using his newly functioning legs to get some hunting done – newspapers spread out on the kitchen table, empty boxes of shotgun shells stacked neatly on the floor by the couch, an empty bag of rocksalt on the porch – but there's no sign of where he went or when he left. Dean thinks he probably didn't hang around the silence of his home for too long before starting to feel restless.

At least, that's how Dean would react.

But Bobby has left his spare key in the potted cactus around back (Dean scratches his hands up trying to reach it, but then, that's the point of the cactus), so Dean lets them in and starts thinking of a way to apologize to Bobby upon his return: 'Sorry I came into your house without permission, but you weren't answering my calls and I didn't know where else to go.' It sounds just a little bit pathetic, in his head.

Gabriel pokes around the house like a kid in a candy store, picking things up, moving them around, examining pictures and newspapers, pots and pans, all with the same level of muted enthusiasm. Dean has to tell him, more than once, to put down picture frames and bags of herbs, sticks of incense, candles. Gabriel doesn't need to be told twice, but he picks up _everything_. Dean supposes he doesn't have any reason to worry about Gabriel hurting himself, because he's still an archangel (even if he doesn't have all his strength back), but, then again, he's more worried about the _house_.

Dean glances through the pantry and scans the shelves of the fridge, looking for something edible. He finds a lot of bacon, and a lot of bread in the cupboard, and a head of lettuce and half a tomato in the fridge. Bobby, apparently, practically lives off of BLT sandwiches and beer, which seems like the best sort of life to Dean. He eventually finds a pack of swiss cheese and a few slices of ham, and that's enough to make a sandwich, so that's what he does. It's not quite diner food, but then, that's the point. A reprieve from the road.

Never mind that being here, in Bobby's house, reminds him so much of Sam that it's fucking _painful_.

Gabriel leans against the doorway to the kitchen, watching Dean eat.

"So, what are you going to do?" he asks. Dean chews and swallows before he answers; he swears Gabriel does that on purpose, just to be as inconvenient as possible.

"Well," he says slowly, "first I'm going to finish this sandwich, and then I'm going to try calling Bobby again, and _then_ I'm going to shower and go to sleep."

Gabriel waves his hand. "Not _that_. I mean, what are you going to do with your life? Going to go back to hunting? Going to settle down and start a family? Or are you going to spend the rest of your life wallowing in despair, the way you've been doing for the past few weeks?"

Dean bites the inside of his lip – he doesn't draw blood this time, but it's still sore enough that the pain is enough to distract him.

"Fuck you," he says coldly. "My brother is…"

_Dead_, some hateful part of him whispers. _Dead and buried_.

"…gone," he says, after swallowing around the lump in his throat. "I think I have a _right_."

"Every human has a right," Gabriel says. "That's part of the whole 'free will' thing. You're not as special as you think you are."

Dean imagines pressing Gabriel's face down onto the cold kitchen table, pressing harder and harder until his skull fractures and his stupid, knowing _look_ is crumpled into vague astonishment. Dean thinks that his anger could give him the strength to do that. He isn't sure, but he _thinks_ about it, and it seems possible.

Instead, he carefully sets his half-eaten sandwich down on the counter, and then leaves the kitchen entirely. He doesn't want there to be a bloody mess for Bobby to clean up when he gets home.

~

Living with Gabriel, even if it's only for a short time, is a lot like what Dean imagines living in a college dorm to be like. Gabriel talks nonstop about things that don't matter (ice cream, useless trivia about bicycles, how much he loves small dogs), he doesn't really clean up after himself, and he spends most of his time watching Bobby's small television and bitching about the quality of the picture. Considering that Bobby doesn't watch TV (at least, not to Dean's knowledge), Gabriel's lucky he's getting his Gilmore Girls reruns _at all_.

"There's never anything good on TV," Gabriel whines, and then idly raises his hand, snapping his fingers lightly. Dean doesn't think that he actually expects anything to happen, which is the only reason he can think of that explains Gabriel's surprise when, with a flicker of static, the television turns off and then back on again.

Gilmore Girls is gone. It's been replaced by what looks like an episode of CSI: New York, and it doesn't really surprise Dean that _that's_ the kind of show that Gabriel would prefer to watch. It's all bullshit but, somehow, Dean doesn't fault him for it. It's just…Gabriel. Gabriel and his bizarre fucking taste.

"Oh, hey," Gabriel says. "I like this show." He pats the small amount of space on the couch next to him, raising an eyebrow, and Dean takes a step away, just in case Gabriel's gained back enough of his strength to shoot lasers at him or something. Dean isn't taking any chances, with Gabriel.

"I fucking hate procedurals," Dean says.

"I know. You told me. But wouldn't it be nice to watch something that _isn't_ like your sad, messed up life? Just for a change?"

Dean wordlessly shakes his head. Gabriel shrugs, and turns the volume up higher. Dean tries to speak over it, asks, "So, are you leaving, then? Now that your mojo is coming back?"

But Gabriel doesn't answer, and Dean doesn't feel like asking again.

~

Gabriel doesn't seem inclined to leave. Over the next few days (days that are filled with randomly appearing candy and lights that flicker on and off), Gabriel's strength seems to grow exponentially – every so often he'll snap his fingers or wave his hand and things will just _happen_, almost like he isn't fully in control of what he is. Gabriel always looks slightly surprised whenever this happens, but he gets over it so quickly that Dean thinks it's probably some normal…angel…_thing_.

But the weird part isn't waking up to find his legs literally _buried_ under a pile of jelly beans, or walking into the living room and having the television blare bizarre Swedish children's shows at him. The weird part is whenever Dean happens to walk into a room and Gabriel is still _there_. Because Gabriel isn't ignoring him or dicking him around – if anything, he's being creepily _polite_. He's started picking up after himself (well, sort of – he still doesn't clean up his freaking candy), and he doesn't try to force Dean to stay in the room when he's watching his fucking awful cop and lawyer shows. But both are so out of character for the guy that Dean is immediately suspicious – he starts searching the sheets of his guest bed before he lies down, he tries to open cupboards from a safe distance away, he ends up walking around on _tiptoes_ whenever he knows that Gabriel is nearby, half afraid he's going to end up turning around a corner and stepping in a nest of snakes, or having a bucket of fish fall on his head.

He manages to withstand three days of torture. Dean thinks that's pretty good, all things considered.

"What are you doing," he demands. The television flickers, and then stops right in the middle of a police investigation scene. Gabriel pauses, his ice cream cone raised halfway to his mouth. Dean's pretty sure the ice cream is like, mint and chocolate chip or something. Gross.

"Eating ice cream," Gabriel says slowly, and then takes a bite out of the edge of the cone. He licks a smear of pale green from the corner of his mouth; his tongue is candy pink, bright compared to the new-leaf color of the ice cream. Dean stares for a long moment, and then clears his throat.

"What are you doing _here_," he clarifies. "You're strong enough to leave, there's nothing _keeping_ you here, so _leave_."

And Gabriel…shrugs. His ice cream slowly melts down the curve of his hand, and Gabriel immediately chases after it, humming thoughtfully.

Dean can't stop staring. He's not sure why.

"Maybe I haven't left yet because I find you interesting," Gabriel muses. "Or amusing. Or possibly pathetic. They're all true, so any one of them will work. Then again…" He raises an eyebrow. "Maybe I think hanging around is doing you some good. Holding you together. You ever consider the possibility that I'm _not_ always a selfish douchebag?"

Dean _hasn't_ considered it. Gabriel, for all that he went out trying to help them, has always been, in Dean's mind, one of the things that he's tried, and failed, to kill. Not an angel, and certainly not an _ally_, but a capricious and malicious _creature_. He's pretty sure Gabriel doesn't have an altruistic bone in his entire borrowed body.

Gabriel tips his head back, a smile spreading across his mouth. It isn't a kind smile. It isn't necessarily a cruel one either, but it's too wide to be comforting, too sly to be human.

"Just fuckin' with you," Gabriel says. The entire room smells like mint and pine. "It's been fun, Deano, but you're starting to get boring. Sam is _dead_, my friend. He's hanging out with Lucifer in the Deep Freeze, and no amount of moping or glaring will bring him back. You're not a special snowflake, Dean. People die. _Brothers_ die. And we have to stay behind, even when we don't want to."

Gabriel lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. There's sadness, in the curl of his lips, a spark of painful regret in the sharpness of his expression. Dean's breath catches, just a little, because it's achingly beautiful, and Gabriel almost looks like a statue, mournful and lost.

Then that brief display of emotion shuts down, and Gabriel raises his hand, bending his fingers in a slow, mocking wave.

"Gimme a jingle when you learn how to deal with your angst like a normal human being," he says.

And then there's no one in the room but Dean.

The television unfreezes, suddenly enough that the sound makes Dean jump.

"I think it might be _blood_," one of the cops says. Dean stares at the television, unblinking – it isn't blood, it's corn syrup and red food dye. Real blood isn't that bright, isn't that _smooth_. It's dark and thick and a lot of the time there's bits of flesh in it, depending on how violently the person died…and bodies never look like that. They never look like the person has just gone to sleep, their skin still intact, their eyes peacefully closed.

They don't look like Sam, falling backwards into the darkness. They don't look _content_.

_But wouldn't it be nice to watch something that isn't like your sad, messed up life? Just for a change?_

Dean sits down on the couch.

He doesn't change the channel.


End file.
